Thursday, December 20, 2012

Kerry Washington is stunning and hot on the Dec./Jan 2013 cover of Uptown Magazine in a black vintage lace top. The 'Scandal' star's new movie, 'Django Unchained', LA premiere was cancelled but the movie is set to hit theaters this month.

In the issue out on newsstand, KW talks about her new movie, leaving the entertainment industry, growing up and more. Continue below to read some excerpts from her interview and to see more images.

“Olivia Pope is so much more powerful and sophisticated than I am, and she has more access! Usually I go into my actor’s toolbox and say, Okay, I need this tool and this tool and this tool, pretending to grab some hardware. Everything else I’ll put away and go to work. With Olivia, every day I have both toolboxes! Every tool. She requires all of me: my brain, my body, my heart, all of it.”

On what drew her to the role in 'Django Unchained':

“I’ve never seen slavery dealt with this way before in film. So often it’s a white character who’s the savior of black people.”

On why she's no saint:

“I try to make the best choices for me. If you look at my body of work, I’ve always taken huge risks. At a moment when people considered me a serious actor, I’ll go work with the Wayans brothers on a silly comedy [Little Man]. I’ve played prostitutes, drug addicts, pimping lesbians. I do work I’m drawn to.”

On making assumptions about characters:

“If I were to say it’s okay to play a lawyer but not a maid, or it’s okay to play a professor but not a slave, that would be sort of spitting on the legacy of my grandmother, who was a maid on Park Avenue for years, or my ancestors in South Carolina, who came from slavery. What’s interesting about storytelling, is we get to step into someone’s experience for an hour and a half in the dark, and in the process of living through that journey we learn about ourselves. That’s what it’s all about to me.”

On growing up discussing race and society at the dinner table:

“My family’s very multi-ethnic. When we get together for the holidays, it is the U.N., across the board.

On thinking her working middle class family was balling:

“We had a microwave and two cars. We had a dishwasher before anyone in the building. And then you go to this other world, and it’s, Oh, we’re taking a helicopter to your house in the Hamptons? For a lot of classmates, I knew the only other black women they’d known were their domestic help.”